Episode Summary
In their third episode, three nerdy friends learn more about leeches before discussing the 2006 film Pan’s Labyrinth. They also take a mid-episode break to introduce a new segment, Leech on a Beach.
Episode Notes
After discussing leech-themed cocktails (1:30) and another round of Leech Anatomy 101 (4:07), Aaron, Banks and Evan dive into Pan's Labyrinth’s leechiest themes (11:28), scenes (22:00), and characters (28:10). To get some relief, the guys head into their first Leech on a Beach segment (35:17). They conclude by considering the film’s medicinal qualities (38:49) and giving an overall rating -- from 1 to 4 -- of the film’s leechiness (44:10).
We're always looking to expand our pond -- please reach out!
Series URL: www.theleechpodcast.com
Public email contact: theleechpodcast@gmail.com
Social Media: @leechpodcast on Twitter, theleechpodcast on Instagram
Credits:
Hosted by Evan Cate, Banks Clark, and Aaron Jones
Editing by Evan Cate
Graphic design by Banks Clark
Original music by Justin Klump of Podcast Sound and Music
Production help from Lisa Gray of Sound Mind Productions
Equipment help from Topher Thomas
Episode Transcript
Evan 00:14
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Leech Podcast, the most visceral podcast. As always, the Leech Podcast is a show about movies that suck the life out of you, but also stick with you. They may even be good for you. I'm joined as always by my two favorite leechy gentlemen, Aaron Jones, and Banks Clark.
Aaron 00:35
Hey hey.
Banks 00:36
Good to be here!
Evan 00:40
It is great to be with you again. Listeners might remember the three of us used to teach together, where we discovered our shared love of difficult movies that make your heart bleed. And of course we used to teach together and now we leech together. This week on the Leech we are trying out some new material; we're workshopping a few ideas. The first is a subtitle for the Leech. One one idea we had was the Leech, the most visceral podcast. So we'd love people's input on that. We're also taking input on people's favorite leech cocktails. The first idea that came to mind were Bloody Marys. But we imagined there are creative folks out there with other leechy cocktail ideas that we would love to hear about.
Banks 1:23
We will try them out on air.
Evan 1:25
We will try them on air during future episodes. That's right. We're also aware that some people probably study leeches for a living, and we would love to hear from those folks. We'd love to even interview them. We don't know what the title of that profession is. We don't know if it's a leech expert, a leech-pert, or something probably more official sounding, but we would love to hear from a leech-pert, maybe even have a residential leech-pert that we can consult with frequently. A new segment that we are debuting this week on The Leech is Leech Anatomy 101 with Aaron. Aaron, take it away.
Aaron 02:06
I will be delighted to. This week I'm going to be talking about how it is that leeches eat. Turns out that some leeches are actually hunters. But the majority of leeches are – you got it – parasites. How fitting – parasites. Some leeches just have teeth, like a bit of a little jowl that they use for their feeding. But the majority of leeches, as I've found so far, have some teeth, little sets of jagged serrated teeth like little saws. They use these teeth to create a y-shaped incision on the skin. But they cut so softly you don't really notice, of course. They use a– there's an agent in their saliva that causes blood not to clot. And most leeches have a little mouth organ similar to – you might think, in a butterfly, where the butterfly sticks its little proboscis into a flower. The leech has its own proboscis that it sticks like a needle or a straw into the skin. I was horrified to learn– horrified to learn that there is an Amazonian leech, the largest in the world, that can grow 18 inches long and has a proboscis that can be up to six inches long. This is a six inch needleInto your skin. The last thing I'll say is that leeches store the blood that they extract from their host – Some leeches they store it in a place, it's an it's a blood storage organ inside of them, called a crop. And it can expand, it's like an expanding bladder, that can hold the blood of its of the host. And some leeches can hold up to five times their own weight in the blood of the host that they suck from. And that's leech anatomy 101.
Evan 04:13
That was brilliant and beautiful. Thank you for sharing your learning with us.
Banks 04:18
Thank you– so many thank yous.
Evan 04:21
I don't think I could give a better segue into this movie than Leech Anatomy 101 with Aaron, so Banks, will you please give a synopsis of this film.
Banks 04:30
Yeah, let's jump into this movie. But before we do, quick spoiler warning, we're obviously gonna be talking about this movie. If you haven't yet, pause it, watch it, rewatch it, if you've already seen it, it's worth your time. Also a bit of a content warning. This is a movie that definitely has some adult themes, definitely has a little bit of violence in it, some things like that.
So if you're squeamish about such things, this might not be the movie for you. So, this is a movie that is about at least two families. You know, we were first introduced to the Kim family, this father, mother, son and daughter. And they were introduced and they are impoverished, they live low in the city. They literally live in a basement. And what we learn is that they're also incredibly talented. We learn that they are dedicated, that they all have interesting and unique skills that they bring, and they're good at them. And through the son -- the son of the Kim family ends up getting a job being a tutor for the second family: the Park family. And the Park family are sort of the mirror image: they are very wealthy, they live high in the city, almost-- it's shot such that it almost looks like they live in the sky. And as they– and so as the son learns about this family and sort of gets into them, he then finds jobs for the rest of their family, whether it's, you know, being an art tutor, whether it's being their driver, being the housekeeper. Soon, the entire Kim family is working in the household, the entire Park family, but the Park family doesn't even know that the Kim family is even related to one another. And so you get the sense that there's sort of this great con, and it's very fun, but then the movie takes a turn. And all of a sudden, what happens is the– We are– we meet that the old housekeeper actually has her husband in the basement of the Park house. And that they have been leeching off of the family. Hear what I did there? A little bit of leech, right? Just in the same way that the Kim family has been trying to. And then there's this whole drama between the two families. And in the end, what ends up happening is the Kim family ends up putting, you know, the housekeeper, her husband back in the basement, terribly injured, it's rough. And the Kim family has to hide from the Park family, they come back. And there's this whole drama that ensues. And what's interesting is the movie then sort of turns into violence at the end. And you're left wondering what is the success? What is it that the Park family has that these guys are trying to take? And is it them, in the end, that is the host? Is it the Park family who’s the leech? Is it that the Kim family that's leeching off? It kind of all gets mixed up. And it's this wonderfully complex ending. And it leaves you just really wondering and asking questions. It's very thought provoking. But I kind of want to talk about some themes. So I think it's about time we jump in.
Evan 08:06
Yes, thank you, Banks. Yes, we are going to talk about some leechy, leechy themes in this film. I'll start us off. My theme is madness. Madness. [Ohh, all right.] And I want to focus my thoughts on madness around Geun-se. This is the husband of the original housekeeper, Moon-gwang, who we realize about halfway through the film that, in fact, he is perhaps the original parasite. He is the first person to more or less leech off of the Park family. Yet they don't even know he's there. And he sets off a lot of the plot in ways that we didn't realize. He had actually shown up to Da-song, the son of the Park family earlier in the film, which had led to Da-song going "mad" himself. Geun-se later will hit Ki-woo, the Kim's son, over the head with the rock, leading to his mental difficulties. So this madness theme shows up around Geun-se wherever he ends up in the film. And I think at the center of this madness is certainly -- you know, eventually his wife will be killed tragically. And so there is trauma that's this informing this madness, but I think--
Banks 09:21
He's already a little bit off his rocker before then. I mean, [Yeah, no,]
Evan 09:25
I mean, the image of him like pounding his forehead against the button, turning on the light for Mr. Park, and the sort of religious devotion to that -- it strikes me as some something unwell. [A little bit.] A little. And I think what's, what's going on there is that once they come– once Geun-se and Moon-gwang, come into contact with the Kim family, and they realize, "Oh, these folks are doing the same game. They're leeching off this Park family just like we are." But the Kim family is so crass. They don't appreciate the house. They don't appreciate high culture. They don't appreciate good food and wine, they want to just drink beer and get drunk on the couch. [Yeah.] And I think for Geun-se, something snaps here because he'd been living in this illusion that he had made it. Even though he was in the basement of the rich house, he was in the rich house, and he appreciated it. And I think when he realizes that all of that was actually an illusion, that's when the snap happens for him. And that's what sets off these, these series of murders at the end of the film.
Banks 10:25
I will buy that– buy that argument at a capitalist market for sure. Because I think that, you know, I think that that ties in beautifully, because I think one of the major themes of this movie that that touches on is the theme of – I don't know if you want to call it the worship of wealth – but it certainly is the aspirations of capitalism. I think that that is a huge theme that you see throughout this movie: the wanting to climb the ladder, the wanting to become that top person on the top, on the highest hill; whether it's the Park family who's up at the top, whether it's the housekeeper who seems to have almost made it and has developed that; whether it's the Kim family conning their way into it, they're all playing that same game. And I do think it makes a kind of a weird sort of sense, the madness that comes from recognizing that there is something off about that entire aspiration, when perhaps it's unnecessary.
Aaron 11:36
Yeah, let me elaborate on that. I think that one of the things that– if madness is a necessary part of this capitalist arrangement, and the huge gaps of wealth, privilege and class that are explored in the film– it shows that, just as essential to this capitalist paradigm as madness, is the idea of parasitism, of parasites. The host in this film, the wealthy and the affluent, and the highest of class, they become entirely dependent on a cast of servants, servile characters, who they often refer to, as hinted in the film, these characters are compared to dogs. They're not seen as fully human in the way that the wealthy and affluent are. And these people become, by the very nature of the capitalist paradigm and the dream that's part of it, they become parasites. And there's this incredible intimacy that I wanted to talk about. This intimacy between the rich and the poor, where the poor find themselves teaching the rich, cooking for them, like, lovingly preparing meals for them, doing their laundry, walking beside them in the store, like, pushing the shopping cart, they're driving them down the street, talking about life, like, the intimacy is incredible.
Evan
The emotional therapy too.
Aaron
Oh, providing emotional therapy! And the distance between them, though they be sitting three feet apart, is staggering. And impossible to traverse, impossible to traverse. And this is shown at its most clear and most painful, at the scene where the Kim family are running like hell to get away from the house, when they're fleeing back to their home in the rainstorm. And the number of steps down which they have to travel – and the amount of distance they have to traverse to get to their own home – is the distance that has been there the whole time, though they be sitting three feet apart, from the people in whose home they stand. And it's– so that intimacy and distance at the same time is at the very core of what I think it means to be parasite, that you are never going to be the host. You can– even if– because you've sucked so much blood from the host, you start to share some of its DNA, like, it's blood is in you, and it's dreams are your dreams, you don't get to be the host. And that's the interesting part at the ending, where the son who's experienced his brain injury, begins to think that, and has such a vivid dream of becoming, the owner of the wealthy home, that he almost convinces the audience that it’s happened.
Banks 14:35
Yeah, that's right. That's right.
Aaron 14:38
The dream is so vivid, and so real. And the intimacy there seems so complete. But it's still not true. And the implication is that it can never be.
Evan 14:51
Right. And just to pick up on that, too, I think the imagery of descent in the film was the other thing I was going to pick up on, or social– not social mobility upward, but social downward mobility really, or the impossibility of upward mobility. So many of the scenes are about descent, even for, you know, the original housekeeper. I mean, she is knocked down the stairs and hits her head. The Kim family runs down the stairs back to their home. And I think, again, this reef, like you said, Aaron, I think all of those images and the impossibility of actually coming out of the basement? I think they have to make us reframe the connotation around the word parasite. Right? So, like, the Kims of course are parasites. That's the humor of the whole first half of the movie. But are they really to blame? Like, to what extent are they responsible for their lot in life? Right? Like on one level, their partying and the nonsense could be seen as a step too far; they are they are ‘crossing the line,’ as Mr. Park would say. But in a world where their whole– their whole world comes crashing down with literally one slip up? Like literally one, right? In the basement, which Banks, I know you want to talk about. They literally slipped– one person slips their foot once– and they all come crashing down, and the ruse is up. If your life is that precarious, how much are you really to blame? And, their lives are just as precarious as Geun-se and Moon-gwong, and so it feels somehow gross to draw these clear lines of good and evil around their actions. The film seems to be asking, right, in a world like this, what does it even mean to act well or ill?
Banks 16:34
Yeah, I really do love how the movie is blurring so many lines and expectations, because, I mean, I love that they don't– they don't settle for a sort of either heroized, like really making the Kim family seem just these incredible heroes, or being the villains. The wealthy aren't necessarily the villains. Everyone, in their own way, has very human, likable qualities, and also is in some ways devious. Your lines are very blurred, and the roles are blurred. And I think that that's part of what makes the dialectic of this movie so captivating. And I think as Aaron was pointing out, what does it mean? Who is the host? Who is the parasite in this? Because in the end, it just feels like they're in a– just a pool of– people sort of feeding, building off of one another. I don't know. We've had debates before on what, you know, the proper term is for a pod of leeches, a pond of leeches. I don't know what we're gonna call it but–
Evan 17:47
A gaggle? Is it a gaggle?
Aaron 17:50
A giggling gaggle of leeches?
Banks 17:52
Yeah, who knows–a legion,
Evan 17:55
A legion of leeches! A leech-ion.
Aaron 17:59
And can I just say, I want to add something to this idea of like the intimacy between the rich and the poor. It's so curious to me, like how, like the levels of– the levels of artistry that it takes for the poor to even work their way into this wealthy home, are at least equal to or greater than the levels of cleverness and smarts that the rich people have, right? They just operate in different systems of recognition and reward. So for example, the daughter is like amazing at forgery. She's amazing at art–
Banks
Also an incredible actress.
Aaron
Right? And like, that's what I was gonna say, like the son is a screenwriter, like he writes out these conversations that they need to have. The father is a researcher, like they go to the Mercedes dealership, and they research the vehicles. Like these people–
Banks
He’s also an incredible driver! He gets put to the test for his driving skills.
Aaron
We have artists, researchers, screenwriters, like, everyone–
Banks 19:03
The mom was like some sort of metaling shotput athlete, right?
Evan 19:09
Yeah, she had won awards.
Aaron 19:12
It's not that they're any different than these other people. But they've been like tracked into these different lanes on the highway which have different exit ramps and different destinations. And it's just amazing to me the way that there's like this social engineering that they have no– their own individual autonomy and skillfulness– has no way to combat or to control.
Banks 19:34
And you're exactly right, the entirety of like the first half of the movie is made funny and made interesting by just how talented and good they are right at bringing that role in, that it's downright impressive. Like, that's what makes, that's what drives the first half of the movie. This is like the Ocean's Eleven of you know, con jobs here.
Aaron 20:02
Leeches Eleven. Yes. Did you know that some leeches actually are oceanic, I believe? Not all leeches live in freshwater. Anyway.
Banks 20:12
Thank you. I’ll take that to my next trip to the beach. I’m not going to swim anymore, thank you.
Evan 20:18
There are brackish leeches then I guess. Okay, so–
Aaron
I need to double check this.
Evan
With that in mind. Maybe we could talk about some of our favorite scenes, or maybe favorite’s the wrong word. I mean, leechiest scenes. What are the scenes that stick with you and suck something out of you?
Banks 20:37
So, for me the leechiest scene is when the Kim family is hiding in the Park family's house and the Park family has returned. And they have almost gone back to life as normal. They're like, ‘Oh, back from our little vacation that didn't work, got rained out. Oh no, our son has decided to have a little moment. He ran outside and is in a, you know, play teepee in the yard. Okay, let's sit on the couch, canoodle’ – right? – ‘and just keep an eye on him.’ And they never looked down. They never looked down to see under the table is not only broken glass and alcohol – it's the entire Kim family hiding there, unseen, under the table, like a parasite, like a rat, like a cockroach. And so, it's– I love it because you have the host having literally like a physically intimate moment, unaware that right under their noses – that they can even smell them – right there is the entire Kim family, just hiding and they never know. As they decide to do some fraternizing, [the Kims] then sneak out the back door and start to walk down. I think that that is such a portrait of the leechiness. I don't think you can– for me, that just puts it over the top.
Aaron 22:15
I think that scene is the movie in miniature.
Evan
Yes.
Aaron
Everything about that film is like a nut in that moment, in a shell. One thing I want to add to that Banks: I was thinking about this too, that scene. I have others, but there's a really specific reference in that scene, specifically to underwear.
Evan
Yes, yes, yes.
Aaron
To underwear, to panties. And, get this. So earlier in the film, right, the daughter leaves her panties in the family car, and the father discovers them, and thinks– he immediately concludes that their driver is a good for nothing, who’s not only been enjoying some sex in the backseat with women, but it must have been a woman who was on drugs. And so, the low of the low, the worst of the worst. They like awkwardly even handle these underwear. Gloves are put on. And then, at the moment where the husband and wife – the only time where they're kissing and fondling and becoming sexual with each other – a fantasy, a fetish emerges. He says, ‘I wish you had these panties now,’ and she starts to say, ‘Ohh, buy me drugs, buy me drugs.’ That turns them on: the fantasy of the poor, drug-addicted woman and the driver taking advantage of her. What is going on there? Someone help me.
Evan 23:46
Yeah, I don't know either, what's going on there, but I was gonna highlight that as well. And that scene is also my leechiest scene. And I think the part that gets me in that scene, just to build on what you guys have said, is the look on the face of Mr. Kim as he listens to Mr. Park describe how he smells. This stands out to me. I mean, so much of this scene is uncomfortable. But this is the moment where I think I came to love Mr. Kim, in that I felt so much pity and sympathy for him, in that no matter how well he dressed, how well he drove, how well he spoke, he could never– he could literally never get the smell of poverty off of him. Even though the Park family, like you said Banks, don't look down – they don't see him, they're sort of constitutionally incapable of seeing him – he can actually see and hear them say what they really think about him. And what they think about him is that he is a dog, that he is subhuman, that he is smelly.
Banks
And there’s nothing he can do to fix it.
Evan
Nothing. That's right. There's nothing you can do to fix it. And in fact, that night, he's going to go deeper into that poverty through that flood, and the sense that he will never smell good, ever. And I think you see that in that scene afterwards, when they're in the gym, where he says, ‘Never make plans, because they always fail.’ And I think that this is the sort of defeat of Mr. Kim. And I actually think it's in that moment of that awkward sex scene under the coffee table that he is defeated. I think that's when he's defeated in the movie. And it's not guaranteed that he's going to be a murderer after then, but it's just going to take a little spark for him to lose it after that.
Banks 25:42
Well, again, if we return back to themes of ambition, of striving, right, of trying to climb the ladder, it's in that moment that he sees that he can't ever climb that ladder. [Yes.] And he's built his entire life over climbing– the opening scene of the movie, right? Their house is getting fumigated, right? And he says, ‘Leave the door, we need this.’ And he's so driven that he just keeps on folding boxes. His family’s like coughing, and he's just like, ‘No,’ he's just like a boss. Just saying, he powers through some folding, doesn't cough once.
Aaron 26:25
The problem is that every single box he folded, he folded wrong, and cost them a bunch of money.
Banks 26:34
There's some real genius to just how that movie opens, oh my gosh.
Evan 26:37
That's right. Well, okay, so I think that's clearly the leechiest scene. I think honorable mentions that I would consider.
Aaron 26:45
Oh, I don’t know now, can I push back? Let me push back. [Okay. Yeah.] I think there's two other scenes that kind of are connected for me – and I'll talk about – are the scenes surrounding that moment. If that moment is the, like, the burger patty, let's talk about the buns. [Okay, yeah, let's go.] Let’s talk about the whole sandwich that’s this part of the movie. Before that, the first time that the Kim family descends into the bunker basement, possibly one of the leechiest moments in the film, a moment you will never forget, that is so horrifying, where you think what is about to happen? This is awful, terrible. I'll say more about that in a second. And then the other bun of that sandwich is when they flee the house and go down the hill to their flooded apartment. And here's the moment for me. Here's the moment where the two buns of the sandwich become totally fused, there becomes an underground network, a subterranean network of meaning established between them, specifically through the sewer system. Let me tell you what I mean. When the housekeeper, Moon-gwang, is pushed down the stairs, has a concussion, she's tied up. She's clearly dying, and she will die, momentarily. She's saying goodbye to her husband, and she goes over to the toilet in the bunker basement and begins vomiting. Because she has a traumatic head injury. And the scene is cutting– it begins– the frames begin cutting back and forth between her toilet, and the toilet in the apartment basement where the Kim family has just traveled. And the daughter is sitting on the toilet – the lid down– she's just sitting on it, on her phone. And as the woman vomits in the basement, the bunker basement, the apartment basement is vomiting feces [kshh, kshh], up into the apartment of the Kim family, that's ruined, that's flooded, and their whole life has turned to shit. And it's literally spraying out into their home. And for me, just the trauma of both of those basement families, this thing, just, it’s flashing at you in the most horrific ways, and the most dehumanizing ways – that's leechy for me. I can't turn away, and I despise the things that I see.
Banks 29:21
One argument in favor of that being the leechiest scene, you know, thinking about the subterranean sewage network that fuses the buns, is the– I do believe that a flooded basement would be a better habitat for actual leeches than the coffee table. So that might be point to you, Aaron.
Evan 29:41
Yeah, no, it's definitely the grossest scene. And just the image – I agree with you, Aaron – I was gonna, that image of the sister sitting on the white porcelain, raised toilet, with black – I mean, it’s pretty much black – feces just shooting out of from under the lid while she's on her phone. I mean, one of the indelible images of the movie, and it says, I think, and I think the cross cutting with the other basement, like you said, shows that even the refuse of the rich overwhelms and overflows the homes of the poor.
Aaron 30:18
This is why, this is why I'm like – are the parasites the rich? That's where I'm coming back to. Like, who's parasitic here? Who are the people who are making everyone else have to bleed, so that they can do well? That’s an interesting question for me.
Evan 30:37
Yeah, me too. And I think, let's let that be a segue into our leechiest character discussion. Because I think how we answer that might speak to that question. [Ohh.] So, Banks, do you want to give a leechy character for us?
Banks 30:50
I mean, I think that standard answer, right, Ki-taek is literally the leech driving so much the movie. But I think that even as we've talked, my heart has sort of been with him, just throughout the whole movie. I think that his drive and will really helps with that. But for some reason, I find myself very interested in the character Moon-gwang. She's the housekeeper who's– but then– I think that she might for me be number one.
Aaron
Shudder.
Banks
I think that she– almost her– she has been with the family, being in this role for so long, that she lives it. She really sees herself as being a part of it. She knows the house better than the Kim family. She predated them was with the original architect – when he actually lived there – and has done this so well, that [she] is able to hold her husband under there for so long. But he goes mad, he's already mad by the time, and so they've lived into this so carefully, for so long, that a lot of like– the father starts to sort of lose his mind, lose parts of his own humanity, by the virtue of his own isolation. That dynamic I find fascinating. I don't know if that means that Geun-se, the husband, is more of the leechiest character, or if it’s Moon-gwang. But for me, it's that dynamic that's at the heart of just so much leechiness. And I think that part of that just might be because we don't hear their story the same way that we hear the other two families. But for me, I have the strongest reaction to them.
Aaron 32:43
The way that they are portrayed is– it's visceral. It is– they're so wounded. When she reappears at the house– where she has done a lot of reconnaissance to get back into that home: she has shut down security cameras, she's been texting with a child to find out when they'll be out of the house. She has manipulated her way to get back into that home to feed her husband. And she has undergone something. She is visibly changed. Like, her entire face is looking, distraught, destroyed, ill. Like, something terrible has been happening to her, and when asked why, she doesn't explain herself. And we're just left to imagine. It seems like the wounding that she bears witness to is just this casualty of being poor. [Yeah.] Casualty of being cast out. It's awful.
Evan 33:36
It is. And I think I think for me, that's one reason why I don't see her as leechy as much as Geun-se. Although– I think in part because one of the leechy scenes that I was going to call an ‘honorable mention’ was the sequence in which they decide to poison, basically, this housekeeper with her peach allergy. [Oh my god.] The way that's done is so merciless, and it's sort of funny, and you're rooting for the Kims in that moment, right? You want to see them complete the task, on one level. And yet, it's so dehumanizing, and so cruel, for someone who is literally in their same class. So I have a lot of sympathy for her. And then, the dedication she has to her husband, doing whatever it takes to get back to him so that he can eat, so that he can live. She's, I guess, leechy in the sense that I can't get her out of my mind. I can't stop thinking about her. And yet ,I don't think she's– she feels less, maybe, parasitic to me. Whereas Geun-se, I think, and this is in part why, like, he just stood out to me this time, it’s that image of him pounding his forehead on the light button, pounding Morse code, his bloody face as he walks out of the basement. That moment where he steps outside for the first time in however long and he just experiences light. It's just so much, and I just in a strange way can't stop thinking about him when I think about this movie. Even though, again, so many the performances are great, it's something about that character that– that is the movie for me, on this viewing.
Banks 35:20
There's– the image that stands out to me– it's that picture of Geun-se’s face. Fresh blood that is going through, like, these canyons of a cake, like, this high class cake pastry that has been smashed onto his face, and this bright red blood flowing through. And the contrast that's there, just mirroring the contrast we've been seeing throughout the entire movie: a garden party interrupted by murder, cake run with blood. You know, this very wealthy family and just the extreme poverty all mingled together. I don't know. That just does it all for me. And so yeah.
Aaron 36:13
It's so interesting that the news reporting about the murders, it's just, it's incredible, because no one who's looking in on the situation from this, like, wealthy and elite perspective, has any idea what happened. It's totally incomprehensible to them. The fact that these poor people exacted violence upon this rich family, or in this specific context – they can't understand it. I'm so curious about that. And specifically, all they say about Geun-se is that he's a homeless man, a homeless man who no one knows how or why he was at the party.
Evan 36:53
And just to pick up, Aaron, on your idea about intimacy, there's this strange way in which the poor folks have a deep intimacy with this wealthy family, and yet, for wealthy folks in the media or outsiders, their friends, etc., they have no understanding of the humanity of the servants, of the other people in the home. And there's a strange way in which, you know, I'm thinking like so much of this movie has a kind of Marxist, class conflict lens. And yet the class conflict is so subtle, because, you know, in so many ways, like you said, Banks, the the Park family is pretty likable. You know, I think– I think there's ways in which their fetishes are weird, and they're sort of oblivious, and ignorant. And there's the weird stuff going on with Da-song and Native Americans, which is probably a story for another day, but like, they're sort of oblivious and almost kind of silly and superficial. And yet they're not, sort of, they're not stereotypical bad guys who are just out to exploit the poor with everything they do. They just live the way they do, and don't think twice about it.
Aaron 38:14
Oh, gosh, there's actually for me– leechiest character’s really hard, partly because it feels like some of these characters are so entangled that it's hard for me to tease them apart. And I'm thinking about Mr. Kim as my leechiest character, but partly because– partly because of his strange – again, subterranean – kinship with Geun-se. I want you to think about this for a second. Picture the first time that the both of them appear in the film. They're both lying down in positions of helplessness being revived or called upon by their wives. They are the two men who knife people in the chest. They, in interesting ways, like at the same moment that he's telling his son, like, ‘don't make any plans, there's nothing you can do,’ those are the moments that Geun-se is tied up, that he's been– that he's been bound. And it's almost as if Mr. Kim realizes, ‘Oh, I too am bound in this entrapment from which there is no escape.’ For me, these two people are actually the same person in really strange ways. Like, they are the basement dwelling patriarchs. And they're the same, and it's almost like one of them lives in a world of symbol, Geun-se, and one of them lives in a world of reality, where they're the same. And watching, yeah, watching Mr. Kim kind of process the things that are happening in a more symbolic way with Geun-se, like, out in the real world, in real time, lying under the table, and watching just the deep pain and anger wash over his face as he listens to the ways he's being degraded in the conversation between the Park husband and wife. Ooph, that's leechy stuff for me. I have– he sticks with me, and I mean, it really takes something out of me to watch to watch him manipulate and hurt other people and suffer and–
Evan 40:27
It seems fitting. Do you feel like it's fitting that he ends up in the bunker at the end?
Aaron 40:32
Oh, absolutely. That's the final moment of mirroring, isn't it? [Yeah.] That he becomes the one who practices Morse Code to send his messages out to the world. He, like Geun-se, is the one who has to show Mr. Kim respect. “Respect!” That's what Geun-se keeps saying about Mr. Kim. Like, and that's the posture that– or excuse me, that's what Geun-se says about Mr. Park. And Mr. Kim has to try and put on that appearance of worshipfulness and respect that he ultimately– he can no longer, he can no longer put on that act. It all evaporates, and specifically at the moment where the final indignity is that Mr. Park just says, instead of checking on the other people who are hurt, he just says “Give me the keys, give me the keys.” All he cares about is his son, as most fathers would, to be quite fair, but Mr. Kim can't take it anymore. [Yeah.]
Evan 41:26
So, this movie is sad, this movie is hard, this movie is challenging. We also know that leeches, though they suck things out of us, may also have medicinal qualities, something potentially healing about the pain. Are there medicinal purposes, therapeutic purposes in this film, that y’all see?
Aaron 41:53
For me, some something about this, Evan, comes back to the imagery of the stone. I don't know exactly what– like, the stone becomes a weapon of great destruction that is visited upon the head of Ki-woo, the brother of the Kim family. The symbol of the stone as this– as this burden that has to be borne, or that the poor wield against one another, but that is also this gift. It's this unexpected gift. And that's– and the fact that there are moments in the film where everyone's trying to keep track of the stone and to clean the stone. And when he thinks of how to solve his problems, the thing that he rescues from the apartment is the stone. And there's some kind of deep, some deep medicine in that, that I'm still trying to understand. That there's this symbol of– of burden and hope and solution or resolution in that little piece of rock, that fragment of archaeological survey and study.
Evan 43:10
And the stone I believe, doesn't it end up in a stream at the end? Doesn't he put it back in nature? Right? I remember an image of that in water. At the end. [I can’t remember.]
Aaron 43:21
That seems right, but it's elusive. It's an elusive symbol. But for me, it's an anchor of some kind.
Evan 43:30
Yeah, although another way to read it might be that it, you know, it's given by this wealthy friend who becomes his way into the Park family. He takes it with him. It's a sort of, I don't know, it's a totem or something. It's like, a good luck charm. [Yeah, yeah!]. But ironically, it's the thing that bashes his brains in, that's what Geun-se uses to assault him. And that leads him to go mad. And so I don't know. If it's symbolic of the aspirations of ‘making it,’ which the Park family represent, I mean, it could be a really negative image, in that it's also the thing that makes them go mad, and forces him to basically live the rest of his life in a kind of illusion.
Aaron 44:13
I think– and so here's, here's the part where I agree and disagree with you. I think that on the surface, when I look at the trauma that the object causes, I agree with you. But as I follow the object, throughout the film, at the level of my gut, at this more intuitive level, it seems to have a different meaning to me. And I– that's not an argument. It's just a feeling.
Evan 44:43
I feel that.
Aaron 44:45
But what else about medicine? Yeah, how are you all finding medicine in this film? Whew.
Banks 44:51
I think for me, when I look at, for some reason, the imagery of water strikes me as both being a very powerful symbol, but also a very difficult symbol. I mean, there's a directionality, I think, to the water in the film, you know. For some reason I always get the sense that the water is always flowing down. And it's sort of funny, if you think about capitalism and certain framings of that as being a, sort of, trickle down style of thinking, but you look at this, and it makes you wonder, okay, what's trickling down? If you look at the water – I think this is what's medicinal for me – there is stuff that flows downward, but it's not what you think. It's not the wealth. It's refuse. And it's– you know, the son is in a teepee, and he stays dry; it’s a toy teepee in a yard, and he's fine. Meanwhile, you know, you have families in houses and the houses overflowing with sewage. And I think that it makes– I think it this movie puts a mirror to everyone and says, What is– who– Where does your water flow? And that's a question that sits with me. And I think that there's a medicine in the reflection that the movie can inspire. To really make you think about, okay, someone gets your water. And in a capitalist society that we certainly live in, I think that that is a very, very difficult reality to process. And much like the Park family, one it's far too easy to be utterly numb to, utterly blind to. And this movie, I think one of the major purposes of this movie is, well, it's to bring the viewer through the pipeline of where exactly that water goes. And so that, for me, is one of the big medicinal qualities of the movie. And I think that it's rather powerful.
Evan 47:13
That's really well said. The medicinal quality for me is reflective as well, in a slightly different way, but I think related. I'm thinking about illusions and reality in this film. And I think about Ki-woo, in his way, his way of building plans, his own sort of illusions. I think about Geun-se in his illusions of having made it, of success, of wealth, you know. Of course Geun-se doesn't actually make it but instead goes mad. And I think by the end of the film, we should probably not be optimistic that Ki-woo will make it either. I think there's a deep ambivalence at the end of the movie about that vision of owning the house and reuniting with his father. I think that final shot of the the basement apartment that mirrors the opening scene but now is at night, but still with the sock chandelier; I think there's a sense that these these are illusions that the Kim family and Geun-se are living in. They live in a harsh reality, and they live with the illusion of making it out. And so I think the film forces us to ask, you know, can someone– or maybe, how long can someone live on nothing but an illusion of a better life? And what's more cruel, actually? Is it more cruel to live that illusion, or is it more cruel to shatter that illusion for someone else? And so to what extent is reality – or bringing a person into reality – is that actually a gift? And to whom is that a gift for? You know, will the truth actually set you free? And, you know, in a way is Geun-se, living in that bunker, unable to leave, is he somehow more in touch with the reality of his situation than Ki-woo is? I don't know. But I think the film forces you to reflect on the realities we live in, the illusions we create for ourselves, and, sort of the usefulness of those illusions, and even, what's the cost of breaking them?
Aaron 49:32
Hmm. I think that you've actually helped me see a little more clearly, maybe, this idea of the stone, which is this sort of like ultimate piece of bedrock and ground reality. There's almost like– the way in which the stone is weaponized against Ki-woo’s head– it’s this insistence that he return to reality. And there's the moment where you see he and– him and his mother, that he's still got the fantasy somehow. It hasn't been quite knocked out of him. But his mother is operating this entirely different way. [Yeah.] Where she's like, no, we're good, honey. Like, just having each other at all is better than what happened to your sister, and we're not going to try that again. That's the vibe that I get from her. And that means– like, seeing the stone, like, put to rest, in water at the end of the film? It's something like seeing that restlessness put to bed. Not in his fantasy necessarily, but maybe in hers, and maybe in a way for their family.
Evan 50:45
Right. There's something about when she – the mom at the end, Chung-sook – she attends to the memory of her daughter. And she doesn't live with illusions, it seems like. And even– although, even in Ki-woo’s illusion at the end, when she enters that old home, once he's bought it in the illusion, she immediately goes outside and looks at the trees and comments on them. There's something about returning to nature, maybe, or embracing finitude, embracing the memory of your loved ones, that she seems to find a kind of acceptance, I think, though she's not the center of the film. She seems to find some sort of acceptance that maybe is a note of, of health, or, I don't think it's hope, but it's a note of health, fullness, maybe, that many of the other characters don't attain. [Right.]
Aaron 51:40
So then, in a way, by the end of the film, the fantasy of having a home is a sign of mental illness.
Evan
I think so.
Aaron
in a way that it wasn't, supposedly, before.
Evan
It was the dream before
Aaron
Before it was a dream, by the end it's mental illness. Ooph.
Banks 51:58
How long can one live off of an illusion, before it becomes an illness? As Evan so well put it.
Evan 52:06
Okay, so our last category is our leech ratings. I'm just gonna go ahead and say this is a four leecher for me. This film has everything you could want in it. We've– I don't think we've mentioned yet, it was directed by Bong Joon Ho, who is this, he's a brilliant filmmaker has made many many great films. And this one I think, is maybe the pinnacle so far. It's just kind of perfect on every level: the production, the design, the writing, the performances, the cuts, the editing, the music. It just does everything and it makes– to be both a sort of situational comedy and a horror film, and then also deeply reflective and philosophical, and have an economic theory woven through all of it? And also make me feel these deep things? I just feel like it has everything, so I'm four leeches.
Aaron 53:08
I want to pick up on the speaking of the production value of the film, which we haven't talked about yet. I don't know if you two know this, but the the Park household at the top of the hill was not a pre-existing structure before the film was made. [No way.] The film was not– the structure was not designed by a famous architect. It was designed by the director and his production designer and built for the film, partly so that they could get specific shots and angles of the drama that would take place. oh
Banks 53:36
Oh my gosh, dedication.
Aaron 53:30
Every, like, every detail considered. [Wow.] It’s stunning, stunning.
Banks
Obsessive.
Evan 53:44
It maybe speaks to– but that also speaks maybe to the artificiality and the illusory-ness of wealth in, like, even this aspirational home is not real.
Aaron 53:58
It's a fantasy of its own. Yeah. Yeah.
Banks 54:02
I think that this movie has layers upon layers of depth. There are many veins still untapped that we can really start to find nutrients in with our proboscises, if we can return to our beautiful biological facts.
Evan
Probosci.
Banks
I'm also going to give this a four. I think that it's gonna, yeah, this movie checks all the boxes for me and in some ways kind of sets a bar for what a leech movie is. I don't know what else there is to say.
Aaron 54:39
You know, I'm, I'm struggling between the three and a four honestly, partly because the two times that I've seen the movie were much too close together. I decided, because I'd heard so much about the film, to watch it in January. Then we decided collectively to rewatch it for the leech. And I found it punishing. I dreaded, I dreaded at a deep, deep level, watching it a second time. Which, I mean, is the definition of leechiness, absolutely. But what I'm trying to decide is if that dread made it almost too punishing. But no, the first half of the film lured me right back in with its pleasantness, with its caper, and then punished me just as hard in the second half. So all right, I was gonna give it three, then I bumped it up to three and a half. But I don't know what happens to a leech if you cut it in half, which I'll be researching for next time. But, for now, because I don't yet know, four leeches.
55:45
I think a leech cut in half makes two leeches, so I think you've given it five leeches. On that note, this is another installment of the Leech Podcast, the most visceral podcast out there. Thanks for tuning in. Again, I'm Evan Cate and these are my friends, Banks Clark and Aaron Jones, the leechiest people I know. Thanks for listening, everybody. See you soon.
Banks 56:14
Till next time,
Aaron 56:17
Till next time.
Evan 56:24
This episode was hosted by Evan Cate, Banks Clark, and Aaron Jones. Editing by Evan Cate. Graphic design by Banks Clark. Original Music by Justin Klump of Podcast Sound and Music. Production help by Lisa Gray of Sound Mind Productions and equipment help and consultation from Topher Thomas.